Hannah Thornby in Website Form

One of the best things that ever happened to me was moving to Angers, France, without a car. For four months, I was left to wander.

Many days I would leave my room restless and homesick, knowing that many of the people I wanted to talk to from home would not be awake for hours. Sometimes I had a place in mind, but many times, especially in the beginning, I would just start in one direction knowing that soon there would be at least a cafe to buy coffee from.

Over four months, I think I covered almost all of centre ville. I popped into almost every cafe, lured in by the prospect an espresso served like a present: on a small plate with a small spoon and a chocolate.

My favorite place was Le Comptoir des Livres, a small, bright and always lively cafe where my order would come with a peanut M&M and every wall bore hundreds of books. I would come to write or read but I would let myself get sidetracked from my work with eavesdropping on the locals who would come to have their habitual conversation with the cafe owner.

I am still surprised by how long it took me to give into the smells coming from all the goodies being made at Boulangerie des Carmes. Here, I would enjoy watching them making their specialty breads in the front of the house, chatting with the owner who knows English from living in Ohio for a while, and of course, indulging in a snack. My all-time favorite treat is pain aux amandes, which is something like a croissant made with extra love in the form of almond paste filling and often, powdered sugar.

I will always be thankful for the one time I got lost on a run and stumbled upon Parc Saint Nicholas. Making the loop around its wooded lake always put me at peace and will forever be one of my favorite things.

Saturday mornings always meant I was walking through the stalls of the market. Most of the time, not too sure of the measurements in which to buy things, I would just buy fruit – I had a special apple lady – but every once in a while I would indulge with friends in something special – cheese, artichokes, mushrooms, crab, oysters, and my favorite, mussels. I will never forget the first time I learned how to cook with white wine and what a kilo was after ordering two kilos of mussels for two people.

I really cannot imagine that soon I will be back in the States, waiting for my brother to let me borrow the car everyday instead of making my way by foot past Jardin du Mail and Place du Ralliement. Sometimes walking was a pain (in the beginning the 30-min morning trek to class was nothing but cruel) but I fell in love with discovering new places, walking down new streets, hearing and watching French people go about their lives. My favorite game to play involved checking to see which people carrying baguettes had already torn a piece of the end.

Besides all the wonderful people I met, these small adventures around town always made me feel more at home.

The people. How I will cherish the people I met in Angers is more difficult to explain. I am not sure I really can and that is why this farewell post is mostly about the places. All I will say is that I will never forget all the people who welcomed me into their homes, answered my endless questions, and shared part of their lives with me, whether it was dancing “Rock n’ Roll,” the cheese Morbier, the Brittany specialty of galettes, or their favorite French band, Indochine.

Though the French tradition of “la politesse” and “la serieux” may seem to make the French more distant, especially compared to Americans, once conquered, I found the people I came to know in Angers to be some of the warmest I have ever met.

Soon, I will be on a backpacking trip around Europe wandering around bigger and more famous cities. Yet, I think I will always miss the places and people of Angers. I learned more about myself, France, and the world living there the last four months living than any other place. I do not know when or how I might be able to come back, but I really hope that I do.

Au Revoir!

I am an English Writing major, but sometimes I fail. Sometimes I make spelling mistakes and sometimes words just utterly escape me. This happened to me last week on my spring break, where upon travelling to Italy to see the ancient cites of Rome and walk the many side streets of Florence, all I could say was “this is stupid.”

By this, I do not mean to say that Italy was insufficient or lacking in any way. Rather, most everything was so spectacular that it was, in fact, stupid. It was stupid how easily one could wander through small alley streets and then come upon something like the Pantheon in Rome or Santa Croce in Florence or at least some age-old gorgeous fountain adorned with statues and with its own mythology. It was stupid how much I salivated just walking around town because delicious food and smells were everywhere. It was stupid how well I had been saving my money while here in Europe and how many things I bought in the many street markets that litter Florence. It was stupid how much gelato I ate because it was often cheaper than water.

And the task of explaining to everyone who asks me how I liked Rome and Florence? Stupid.

I am fully aware of how much an injustice I am doing to Rome and Florence, but, really I am doing my best. All I will say is that I love exploring any city, but Florence and Rome are most definitely special places to be, no matter what you are doing. Here are the only thoughts and memories that I am able to articulate:

Trevi Fountain: Normally I hate tourists. I love doing those things that tourists do, ie visit all the sites, but I hate feeling like I am among such a crowd as tourist crowds inevitably are: ignorant, loud, noisy, pushy. The three times I visited the Trevi fountain, there were quite a few tourists, but make me a pizza, gelato, or wine picnic and I am perfectly content to lounge around on the steps of the fountain for hours, watching people throw their coins in the fountain or take pictures with their loved ones. I will even help those couples who do not want to take “selfies,” by taking their picture for them.

Pizza and Pasta after the Colosseum: One of my favorite moments in Rome was grabbing a late lunch after the Colosseum. My three companions and I had spent the last couple hours spending our mental energies imagining what the Colosseum and the Roman Forum was like a thousand years ago. Stumbling upon a side street a little ways away from the Colosseum, we sat outside, ordered a margherita pizza, cacio e pepe (a perfectly simple parmesan and black pepper pasta dish), and a homemade lasagna. It was one of those perfect travelling moments where we were left a little numb but what we had just seen but we were also able to enjoy a warm sun, a breeze, and a really good off-schedule meal. The experience was made complete by our very Italian waiter, who recounted his childhood in Rome while he helped us figure out our map and explained that Rome is so beautiful that you have to see its sites twice: in the morning and at night.

Train through Tuscany: The regional train we took from Rome to Florence was nothing like the TGV I have taken in France: it was dirty and a little too warm for comfort. Yet the surrounding countryside was more than adequate enough of a distraction. I would have taken a million pictures of all the perpetually golden-lit rolling hills, the occasional villas, and winding rivers if the windows of the train had not been so dirty.

The Art in Florence: In Rome, I was struck by the history of it all. All the monuments and statues just made me think about how such a city could have lived as long as it had. Florence had a different kind of air and sense of beauty. I found this both in visiting Santa Croce and the Duomo – both birthplaces of the Renaissance – and in wandering around the city, which I am sure is mostly just side streets, finding artisan shops on every corner in addition to homemade leather, paper, pottery, and other beautiful things.

I will also partially blame my lack of eloquence on the fact that this is a big month for me. I stop living in France in about a week, start a three-week backpacking trip around Europe directly after, and in exactly a month, I take a plane home to see the family and country that I have not seen in four months. Give me a break.

On that note, I would also like to say that I am stupid-lucky to be here and that I am incredibly grateful for all those who have made the last couple months a reality for me. Really, I do not have the words to thank you.

I spent Saturday in Normandy. As I have told everyone from home who has asked, it was a day well spent. To use the knee-jerk reaction word “good” would be taking away from all the tragic history I encountered.

Hearing about all the madness that has been going on stateside all week, from Boston to West, Texas, to even some small scares at home in Oregon, it was odd to be in the mental space of World War II. I would go as far as saying that hearing about all the fear and desperation that was Europe’s reality for so many years seemed to sink in a little deeper.

We started the day at a World War II museum in the city of Caen, a city almost completely destroyed during the last part of the war. The museum included four main sections where one could walk through chronologically the events of the war, from the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of authoritarian governments in the market crash of the 20s, to D-Day in 1944. There was an incredible amount of footage, old newspapers, letters, posters, and other artifacts detailing the French occupation, the Holocaust, and the war itself.

Perhaps the most disturbing was a letter home from a Nazi soldier, justifying his actions as part of a shooting squad in the Holocaust. The man told his wife that the Jews would have done the same only 1,000 times worse if they were given the chance. It was a horrifying testament to a hatred and ignorance I wish our world never had to encounter.

Then there was just the sheer amount of war footage. I cannot wrap my brain around the fact that someone had a camera and was filming as soldiers prepared for war, crossed the English channel, and then finally landed on the beaches. The scenes and emotions from soldiers these war journalists captured are incredible, but I still do not think I would ever even want such a job.

After the museum, we made our way to the actual beaches were the Allied soldiers landed to liberate France. I never could have imagined Omaha beach to be as stunning as it was after the black and white footage depicting nothing but carnage I had seen earlier.

Pont du Hoc was another famous battle site we visited. Out of 225 soldiers given the treacherous mission to scale a cliff in order to capture the strategic outpost, 88 survived. There in the deep craters scattered all about the cliffs, one could see the effects of all the airstrikes and missile fire that took place on June 6.

Our visit to Normandy also included stops at two different cemeteries: one for the nearly 10,000 fallen American soldiers, and one for the 20,000 Germans.

It is in almost every single guide book that one should avoid taking about the War in France. It is a rule that is hard to argue with especially after everything I saw this weekend. In my other visits to castles and chateaux in France, that sense of history people always associate with Europe has been obvious. After this weekend, that sense of tragedy people also speak of was more apparent.